Saturday, February 03, 2007

Some of what war looks like

Although I am, as most you know, often flip, sarcastic and snarky, when I warn you about the content of this post, and even more about the content of the posts I link to, I am being dead serious. I stumbled across some extremely disturbing, terrifying and nearly vomit-inducing images earlier today, images of bodies mutilated and literally torn apart by the machinery of war. And my goal in this post is not to subject others to the same experience, but to try to say something about them. So, quite seriously, if you don't want to deal with this sort of thing (and, seriously, who could blame you?), don't read any further, because the next paragraph includes a graphic description of a very unpleasant image (I haven't brought any images into this post, for the obvious reason that I have no desire at all to force them on anyone).

This post contains some less than cheering sights. The first, simply horrific, image hits with even greater violence and depth because of the contrast with the only other image you've seen so far, a picture in the sidebar of a beautiful woman, looking down. She appears sad, but there's a soft light falling on the side of her face, and she has lovely, sensual lips. The picture creates a mood of gentle, wistful appreciation of her physical beauty. Then, as you scroll down, you see the first image: a man's severed head, with a smear of blood on the asphalt behind it, the skin of his face ripped off his skull and bunched up on the ground in front of his forehead; if you can force yourself to stare at it long enough, you can make out his nose and mouth. It looks unnatural, to say the least, but more specifically, it looks at first as if his head must be buried, since the line you expect to see drawn down and outward by his face is abruptly broken by the ground. As your eyes adjust and begin to retrace the lines, this time grasping what they are seeing, they run down to where his face or his shoulders should be, and then stop, abruptly. Suddenly you're seized by a shock of realization and horror, as you comprehend what this is.

I had planned to uncork a long spiel citing Pascal on how our reason can be unhinged by a spider, by the site of something moving where it shouldn't be, and quoting Nietzsche on how the impulse to know and comprehend something intellectually is at bottom just a desire to securely fix it and lock it away in this or that category, so that it's no longer uncanny and terrifying. Well, I'll go ahead and quote him:

What is familiar means what we are used to so that we no longer marvel at it, our everyday, some rule in which we are stuck, anything at all in which we feel at home. Look, isn't our need for knowledge precisely this need for the familiar, the will to uncover under everything strange, unusual, and questionable something that no longer disturbs us? Is it not the instinct of fear that bids us to know? And is the jubilation of those who attain knowledge not the jubilation over the restoration of a sense of security?

But going on in this vein seems inappropriate. The tricks that the mind uses to convince you that you aren't and couldn't be the soft and slimy mess of viscera splashed on the ground in a lurid red chaos -- those tricks are interesting and worth exploring, but they seem beside the point here. The more immediate point seems to me to be, as Sileas, the blogger linked to above, says herself in a follow-up post:

Don’t you understand that we must be active? but more than that, don’t you understand that no matter how active the bunch of us are, we can’t really do anything without you… The power lies in the quantity and the quality. That’s how we will make a difference. You can’t just shake your heads when you read the newspaper, feeling sad and condemning the atrocities, but then, going about your day normally. This won’t do. This is how I see it, when you see a man raping a woman, and you stand there with your hands behind your back shaking your head… What difference does it really make? You might as well clap your hands, it won’t matter either way. When you stand there idle, what does it matter if you condemn the atrocious act, you might as well approve, what difference does your inactive condemnation make? Nothing. It just eases your conscience and allows you to sleep better at night, not helpful, it’s selfish.

Some of you will not like the political thrust of these posts (note: as Izzi/Sileas notes in her comment, she is not trying ignore violence against other groups. But I thought I should add the following caveat so as to avoid "Why do you hate America/Israel/the Jews/freedom" comments): what about Israeli victims of suicide bombings? What about American victims of terrorism? What about the Iraqis and other Arabs being killed, not by America or Israel, but by other Arabs in Iraq? I don't really want to argue with that here (the picture I described above is, in fact, of a victim of an al-Qaeda attack in Amman), except to note that there's no question which group of victims receives more media coverage in this part of the world. But my point is more this -- presented with the physical and horrifying reality of war, let's ask the proper question to ask of any crime: Qui bono? Who benefits, and how, and why, and how can they be stopped?

All of this via this blog post by Sabbah (the images of limp, lifeless bodies are less viscerally sickening, but no less uncanny), which was followed by this post, detailing an e-mail exchange between the blogger, Sabbah, and a ham-fisted State Department employee who had written to denounce him. Those of you wondering how the battle for hearts and minds is going may find the latter interesting, though probably not heartening.

Kristol ODs on the Kool-Aid

Kristol and KaganAnd Crittenden and BushNow and in time to be,Wherever Iraq is remembered,Are changed, changed utterly:And terrible ignoramuses are borne.

That Krazy Kristol has gone so far over the edge that I feel almost guilty posting about this latest tripe spilling off his keyboard. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Maybe he has taken up permanent residence in Bush's bubble and only hears the same voices that haunt our president at night. Maybe he's lost his vision and can't see the handwriting on the wall. I can't think of a better explanation for this latest slander of the reality-based community:

Now, politicians are entitled to be concerned about their political survival. They're even entitled to make foolish and shortsighted political judgments -- for example, that voting for this resolution in February 2007 will help their electoral prospects if the Bush administration's foreign policy is in shambles in November 2008. Indeed, they're entitled to ignore the fact that voting for this resolution somewhat increases the chances of a shambolic outcome to Bush's foreign policy, and therefore may not be in their own interest.

You think he really doesn't understand that it's his bended knee support of the president's imbecilic strategies that will assure our country will be shuffling into 09 through the detritus of Bush's failed foreign policies and be faced with the daunting task of rescuing some vestige of our former international status as a world power from the debris?

And you really have to love Kristol's fearsome brandishing of his tinfoil covered cardboard sword:

In any case, Republican senators up for reelection in 2008 might remember this: The American political system has primaries as well as general elections. In 1978 and 1980, as Reagan conservatives took over the party from détente-establishment types, Reaganite challengers ousted incumbent GOP senators in New Jersey and New York. Surely there are victory-oriented Republicans who might step forward today in Nebraska, Virginia, Oregon, and Maine--and, if necessary, in Tennessee, Minnesota, and New Hampshire -- to seek to vindicate the honor, and brighten the future, of the party of Reagan.

Maybe Billy Boy's adoration of Bush has grown so deep that he also joins our president in eschewing newspapers and ignoring polls. How else to explain his failure to recognize the clear message of the electorate in '06? Victory and vindication via obedient allegiance to this president rest solely in the enfeebled minds of the Decider's self-blinded true believers like Kristol.

Mo' money, mo' war

By Michael J.W. StickingsPresident Bush will seek an additional $245 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and against terror, according to WaPo. This is "on top of regular spending for the Pentagon, which officials say will be $481 billion in 2008, a 10 percent increase over this year's budget":

If approved by Congress, the new war spending would bring the overall cost of fighting to about $745 billion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States -- adjusting for inflation, more than was spent on the Vietnam War.

Bush "has obtained most of the funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through emergency or supplemental spending bills, which are not subject to the same level of congressional scrutiny as the regular budget". Now is the time for Democrats, unlike their rubber stamping precedessors in the majority, to put an end to the post-9/11 practise of waging a series of endless wars with an apparently bottomless pit of money and without any real accountability at all.Bush and his allies will play the support-the-troops card, but this isn't about supporting the troops. It's about waging more war with more money at their disposal. Given that the Iraq War has been a failure, that Afghanistan teeters on the brink of disaster, if it isn't there already, with an impotent government in Kabul and the Taliban reasserting itself and NATO lacking the support to wage the war effectively, and that resources have been diverted from the war on terror to fight the failed war in Iraq, it is not unreasonable to ask why they should have any more money to spend.It isn't so much the money as it is the recipient of congressional largesse, though. Whatever new money there is needs to go where it is needed most. It won't so long as Bush is calling the shots.

Just another day in the life and death of Iraq XXXVII

By Michael J.W. StickingsI'm beginning to wonder if the title of this series -- "Just another day..." -- is no longer either accurate or appropriate. What is "just another day"? Another day of killing and maiming? Another day of blood flowing in the streets?The violence is seemingly ubiquitous in Iraq. Or, as it was put in the NIE, an already "bleak situation" seems to be getting worse. Consider what happened today: "A suicide truck bomber struck a market in a predominantly Shiite area of Baghdad on Saturday, killing as many as 121 people among the crowd buying food for evening meals, one of the most devastating attacks in the capital since the war started."The numbers vary. The AP (link above) is reporting 121 killed and 226 wounded, according to police and hospital officials, but the Health Ministry is putting the numbers at 115 and 331. CNN, citing a Health Ministry source, reports that 373 people were wounded. The numbers will surely go up.So what exactly is "just another day" in Iraq? A day that brings yet more violence of an unpredictable scale. A day when this sort of thing can and does happen. This attack was worse than usual, to be sure, but the violence is all too chillingly common, all too frighteningly normal.**********UPDATE: See the BBC. The death toll is up to 130.

The U.S. intelligence community yesterday released a starkly pessimistic assessment of the situation in Iraq, warning that even if security improves, deepening sectarian divisions threaten to destroy the government and ultimately could lead to anarchy, partition or the emergence of a new dictatorship.

The NIE states that the "bleak situation" in Iraq "will sharply worsen unless 'measurable' military and political progress is made". For Bush, this assessment provides justification for the surge, "the deployment of 21,500 additional U.S. combat troops to Iraq". But is there any reason to believe that this "new"strategy, so similar to previous deployments, will bring about progress in Iraq? No. Here's how the editors of The New Republic put it:

It's now clear that the Maliki government is not going to unify the country; it's interested in U.S. participation only to the extent that it can turn our Armed Forces into an instrument of sectarian warfare. Our military must get out of the business of helping Shia death squads -- a business in which the surge will only implicate us more deeply.

There is civil war in Iraq and there is no reason not to believe that the situation will worsen, as the NIE predicts it will. There may once have been some possibility for progress, but not now, not with the war so thoroughly and grossly mismanaged by the civilian warmongers in Washington and, to a lesser degree, by the civilian occupiers in Baghdad. Simply put, it is too late. The war, perhaps never winnable in the first place, has already been lost. It cannot be won.This is the fundamental truth about Iraq and the Iraq War. Bush may continue to dream his characteristically Panglossian dreams of progress and puts into motion desperate attempts to realize those dreams, but, in the end, the truth will win out over the spin. The only question is when.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Put, not find

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley took a turn in front of the press today and was questioned as to why the administration refuses to use the term "civil war." Hadley, ignoring the fact that the very NIE he himself quotes calls the deteriorating situation in Iraq a civil war, stated that the administration does not use the term "because it’s not an adequate description of the situation we find ourselves."

Leaving aside the whole civil war thing, that's not what this post is about, Hadley sounds like the "situation we find ourselves" comes as some sort of a surprise and is not a product of their own incompetent policy--a policy that mainly consists of wishing on shooting stars and praying at the Altar of Dick. Mr. Hadley, we did not find ourselves in this situation, you put us into this situation. Never forget it, because the people certainly won't.

For the visually inclined, Think Progress has the moving pictures. For more words, the Carpetbagger runs down the rest.

Russia has flown a team of chemical experts to a Siberian region to find out why smelly, coloured snow has been falling over several towns.

Oily yellow and orange snowflakes fell over an area of more than 1,500sq km (570sq miles) in the Omsk region on Wednesday, Russian officials said.

Chemical tests were under way to determine the cause, they said.

Residents have been advised not to use the snow for household tasks or let animals graze on it.

"So far we cannot explain the snow, which is oily to the touch and has a pronounced rotten smell," said Omsk environmental prosecutor Anton German, quoted by the Russian news agency Itar-Tass on Thursday.

An indignation of inconvenience

Guest post by Greg PrinceI've really been trying to keep my mouth shut because as a married man I'm not supposed to bother with opinions about children and relationships. But Mary Cheney has got to be the most self-righteously clueless woman on the face of the earth.

The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience."This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine. "This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child."

Mary quite contrary is desperately using her unborn child as a foil to change the subject because it reveals blind spots and inconsistencies she'd rather not face.

Lest we forget, her dad blasted CNN's Wolf Blitzer for presuming to ask about the political inconsistency created by GOP homophobia.Some people are trying to be understanding. For example, Gentle Fudge observes:

Many feel that a child thrives when raised by a stable, loving family; the controversy lies with what sexes comprise that family life. Focus on the Family has been openly critical of Ms. Cheney's pregnancy due to her unmarried status. (Ok, so let her get married, then. No, wait, you don't want that either...) During a CNN interview, Wolf Blitzer took a cheap-shot at Vice President Dick Cheney, asking if he cared to respond to the criticism. Mr. Cheney rightly refused to comment on the personal matter.But it's not quite that easy. The question wasn't about Mary’s baby, but about the GOP's small-tent politics. How does Big Dick manage to sleep at night knowing he's enabling a culture of destruction that guarantees his grandchild will never have married parents, never have the stability that comes from equal protection under the law, and that endeavors constantly to consign his own daughter to second-class citizenship. Mary's own participation in this sorry state of affairs borders on the pathological.

4,000,000 or so fundamentalists who voted your father and Mr. Bush into a second term do not agree with you.

The question is one of party philosophical hypocrisy. Women in your position are, every day, facing discrimination which is but an academic question for you. With your father's wealth and access to power, you will never have to worry about your or Heather's or the child's welfare.

It's good to have the support of the family. You and your father should be working so all committed same-sex couples should be able to enjoy.

You can't look at the Cheneys here and not be reminded of Mel Brooks' History of the World. "It's good to be the king." All is well; meanwhile, the little people get screwed.

I've not always agreed that every aspect of Mary Cheney's lesbian life should be subject to political scrutiny, but there doesn't seem to be any option here other than that she's being willfully obtuse. She notes that contrary to the hysterics of the religious and social conservatives, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents; what matters is being raised in a stable, loving environment."Of course, her father's political cronies and supporters have been busily running around the nation erecting state constitutional roadblocks the preclude stable, loving environments. The sheer audacity of Mary Cheney, whose political connections and familial wealth serve to insulate her from many of the effects of the exceedingly harsh anti-gay amendment in her own state of Virginia, declaring that it's off limits to ask her father about the apparent conflict (or, better yet, hypocrisy) between his political actions and personal life should be enough for the entire gay and lesbian community to write her off as hopeless.

A night at the opera with Bill

Even if The O'Reilly Factor has many of the melodramatic elements of a soap opera, I have a hard time picturing Bill O'Reilly attending Fidelio or Le nozze de Figaro, so I was a bit taken aback when Lyin' Bill said "I look like that when I go to the opera" when shown a picture of John McCain snoozing during the State of the Union Address.

Body language expert Tonya Reiman was on Tuesday's O'Reilly Factor, probably because Lyin' Bill expected he could elicit some idiot giggles from his idiot audience when analyzing Nancy Pelosi's posture during the speech, but other than the predictably stupid dialogue, one statement of O'Reilly's woke me up: "I believe I could have taken his wallet and he wouldn't have noticed in that posture," said Bill.

Is his Freudian slip showing? Of all the things that might have occurred to the man, why did he think of picking his pocket? Why are his first thoughts of theft? I have no idea actually. I just report -- you decide.

The Plastic Pots of Hyderabad

Perhaps this should be our Amusing Photo of the Day. I'll let the BBC describe it: "A motorbike rider carries plastic pots, used to store water, in Hyderabad, India. The city often suffers from water scarcity during the summer months." Okay. But how is he managing to carry so many pots?

Friday afternoon poem

A classic, and a truly lovely poem. It almost feels wrong to be putting this in electronic form; it almost feels as if it needs to be read on a paper.

George Gordon, Lord Byron

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes:Thus mellowed to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,Had half impaired the nameless graceWhich waves in every raven tress,Or softly lightens o'er her face;Where thoughts serenely sweet expressHow pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent,A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

Senate votes for minimum wage increase

By Michael J.W. Stickings$7.25 an hour.That's what the minimum wage will be if a Senate bill, passed 94-3 yesterday, is reconciled with a House bill that was passed a few weeks ago. (President Bush supports the Senate bill.)The Senate bill includes moderate tax cuts for small businesses, a necessary trade-off to secure Republican support. House Democrats may not support including this and other trade-offs in reconciled legislation, but they should make the effort to compromise.Although I would like to see an increase in the minimum wage passed with no strings attached, the reality is that strings must be attached if any increase is to pass. And what matters most here is that the working poor, currently stuck with a shockingly low minimum wage of $5.15, a wage that hasn't been increased in a decade, could use the additional $2.10 an hour. I am ashamed to say that I spend about that much just on coffee every morning. To the working poor, that much could mean putting food on the table for their children and paying the heating bill.The priority should be clear.(For more, see Bob Geiger, Howie Klein, and Pamela Leavey.)

News from the climate crisis

By Michael J.W. StickingsThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will announce in a report to be released today that climate change is "very likely" the result of human activity. In other words, "it is at least 90% certain that human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural variations are warming the planet's surface".Global warming deniers, many of them industry-funded propagandists, will no doubt focus on the other 10%, arguing, as they have, that the science is far from definitive. However, a separate study conducted by Germany's Potsdam Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research suggests that the IPCC's findings have been too conservative.

(Update: See the Times, which adds that IPCC's report calls global warming "unequivocal".)

**********The lights have gone out on the Eiffel Tower in Paris. In fact, lights went out all over Paris yesterday evening -- just as they did in other major cities like Rome, Madrid, and Athens. All part of a campaign to raise awareness of global warming.**********Al Gore has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on the climate crisis. It doesn't take much to be nominated, because so many people can nominate, but Gore is a truly deserving nominee. Indeed, I would argue that he deserves to win.**********Here in Canada: "Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion tabled an opposition motion Thursday calling for the federal government to reaffirm Canada's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol, labelling climate change 'the single most pressing ecological threat facing our country. I call on the Prime Minister to implement the initiatives I have called for today. This country cannot wait, this planet cannot wait.'"I agree. Although I would argue that climate change is not just "the single most pressing ecological threat facing [Canada]" but the single most pressing threat facing all of us.The Conservatives are doing their utmost to paint themselves green in anticipation of a coming election, but they cannot match the Liberals, and particularly Dion himself, on the environment. In a five-year-old letter just recently made public, Prime Minister Stephen Harper referred to the Kyoto Protocol as a "socialist scheme" to funnel money from rich countries to poor ones. As if the rich countries -- i.e., the major polluters, the ones most responsible for global warming -- shouldn't pay a higher price than the poor ones. Such is the Conservatives' industry-oriented thinking.To be fair, the Conservatives seem to be more green than they used to be, now that they're in power federally and have come to see that the voters care about global warming above all else, but their recent efforts seem to be more about spin and last-minute panic than genuine concern.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Sign of the Apocalypse #39: Spend-crazy Americans

By Michael J.W. StickingsHere's a slightly more serious SOTA than, say, Britney's birth sculpture or Jessica Simpson.Or perhaps it isn't a SOTA at all.Perhaps it's just a Sign of America's Imminent Collapse -- a SAIC, that is. Oh, wait, there's another series.SOTA #39 = SAIC #1 (and this doesn't take account of the Bush presidency, which, along with its evil policy spawn, is as big a Sign of America's Imminent Collapse as there is)So what is SAIC #1?Here's the AP: "People once again spent everything they made and then some last year, pushing the personal savings rate to the lowest level since the Great Depression more than seven decades ago."More specifically, the 2006 savings rate was -1 percent, the lowest rate since 1933. (And that was during the Depression, for fuck's sake.) Indeed: "The savings rate has been negative for an entire year only four times in history -- in 2005 and 2006 and in 1933 and 1932. (But Americans needed to spend whatever they had, and more, during the Depression. There's no such excuse now.)I realize there are a lot of wonderful things to buy out there in the consumer wonderland, a lot of things you just have to have, that your very identify depends to a great extent on what you buy and what you own, that you are your possessions. I realize that our desire to acquire knows no bounds, as I said in the SOTA #38 post, and that our consumer culture is similarly boundless. I realize that our boundless consumerism is a consequence of the self-deification of man that coincided with the death of God, that is, of the modern project itself.One of the founders of the modern project, Francis Bacon, referred to "the relief of man's estate". Apparently that now means owning, or putting on credit, as wide a widescreen TV as possible, an iPod that can hold more songs than have ever been recorded, a luxury sedan that can basically drive itself, a computer that attends to your every virtual need, and so on and so on. Like I said, there are no limits. Limits are for chumps (pre-modern chumps). Except credit limits. Thankfully, they keep raising them. Until...Americans are spending more than they have and their country is doing the same. One day, one day soon, this recklessness will destroy them.

Sign of the Apocalypse #38: Gold dust brownie

By Michael J.W. Stickings(It's been almost five months since #37. Let's get this going again. All of the SOTAs are listed over on the right sidebar.)Need something to go with that $1,000 mint julep? How about a $1,000 brownie?Yes, you read that correctly -- a $1,000 brownie. And you can get it in Atlantic City.Although it really wouldn't go well with the julep. For it isn't just your basic brownie. It's "a brownie with hazelnuts imported from Italy, topped with gold dust, served with a vintage port wine in a $750 Baccarat crystal that the dessert-eater gets to keep as a souvenir."So, really, you're paying for the crystal. And the port. In fact, the port comes in the crystal, and, well, uh, here's how the chef, Jemal Edwards, describes the experience: "You have this beautiful atomizer filled with the finest port known to man. You take a bite of the brownie, and as the flavors are coating your palate, your partner squirts the port onto your tongue. The acidity and sweetness from the port are hitting your mouth at the same time."Ah. Right. Of course. I'm sure it's wonderful. And it all makes sense. (Except the hyperbole: "the finest port known to man"? I'm sure it's not.) But $1,000?The natural human desire to acquire, as Machiavelli understood, truly knows no bounds. But it is also -- and this brownie is but a symptom of the deeper problem -- leading us towards the Apocalypse.

A tale of two headlines

At a low point in the opinion polls, President Bush found a warm welcome on Wall Street, where he delivered an updated State of the Economy speech at Federal Hall before getting a rock star's reception on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

But on Tuesday, the surprise was on Bush. In town to deliver remarks on the economy, the president walked into the diner, where he was greeted with what can only be described as a sedate reception. No one rushed to shake his hand. There were no audible gasps or yelps of excitement that usually accompany visits like this. Last summer, a woman nearly fainted when Bush made an unscheduled visit for some donut holes at the legendary Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant in Chicago. In Peoria this week, many patrons found their pancakes more interesting. Except for the click of news cameras and the clang of a dish from the kitchen, the quiet was deafening.

Face Rush when you flush

I don’t pretend to know from first-hand experience, but from what I read, it may be that the British, having once been the world’s largest empire and having citizens of such diverse ethnicity and religious persuasions, makes more of an effort to treat British subjects who are Hindu, Jain, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Confucian, and Animist with equal respect than does the United States.Whether or not this is true, they do treat Muslims with more respect than Rush Limbaugh, man’s man and woman’s nightmare, would like them to.

Perhaps Rush’s vision of Great Britain is a nation where there is not only a state religion, but a state policy of discrimination against all faiths but the Anglican Church, much as King Henry VIII practised. Although a comparison between the two fat bullies would insult King Henry more than I care to do, it is compelling. But, to make a nauseating story short, Rush, his massive and flatulent ass bouncing and flabby appendages waving like some demented pagan idol, gave another one of his disgusting performances on Wednesday, January 30th. His free-form, stream-of-stupidity lecture was about the outrageous act of the British Government in providing toilets for Muslim inmates that complied with a religious practice.They moved some toilets in one prison so that they didn’t require the inmate to face Mecca while using them.What would Jesus think of such outright decency?

Somehow, in the little mind of Limbaugh, this translates into a waste of taxpayer money, although he disregards the Muslim taxpayers of England in saying so – and somehow in the insect brain of Limbaugh this grants license to Muslims to hijack airplanes with box cutters if the aircraft is on a heading that includes Mecca.I have to wonder about his reaction to a government that neglected adequately to support his religion with taxpayer money or that forced whatever bizarre form of Christianity he calls his own to act against its moral convictions or religious practices – whatever they might be.

I’m sure that for Rush disciples, freedom of religion and treating others with dignity is for liberal weenies and if you steal a car, your punishment must include not only deprivation of liberty, not only torture, but complete and unremitting insult to your religion and ethnicity. As For Rush, any God that he believes in would simply forgive his own trespasses, his lies, his blasphemies, his false witness and all for no other reason than because of who he is.Any God that Rush believes in would in fact be Rush.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Vodka shots

By Michael J.W. StickingsThe European Union loves to regulate. And now -- it's all about vodka.(I think I'm with the Scandinavians and Eastern Europeans on this one. But that's probably because I prefer Scandinavian and Eastern European vodka. Which is to say, I prefer vodka, not "vodka". I mean, there have to be clear standards, right?)

Three letters you can send

First, here's a link to a form letter you can send to Ban Ki-Moon, Kofi Anna's successor as head of the UN, urging him to make Darfur a top priority. Granted, a letter to the UN is not something about which one can be especially optimistic, and this particular one uses rather vague language, but it's better than nothing. This is a good time to link again to Daily Darfur, a blog dedicated to all the news about the genocide in Darfur.

Also, Chris Clarke, who's now writing at Pandagon, has this post up chronicling a fairl complicated story about coal mines and the use of an underground water supply on Native American lands by a coal company. Read Chris's story for the details of both the present dispute and the history behind it (which is a tale of duplicity and exploitation of Native Americans by the US government and corporations, if you can believe that). You can read more here, and if you scroll down to the bottom of the page, there's the email for the Office of Surface Mining. Just below that is a link to a sample letter that you can cut and paste into your email or just use as a guide (here's another link to the sample letter). The deadline is February 6th. As Chris says, "How often can you send an email that helps protect Native rights, clean water and clean air and wild landscapes, and helps people try to mitigate climate change?"

And then this absolutely staggered me. A woman in Florida was raped; when she went to the police, they arrested her for not paying a fine from a juvenile arrest -- although the outstanding fine appears to be an error in paperwork. So, the police arrested a woman who had just been raped, figuring that they really should try to traumatize her as much as possible (see Nezua on their tireless efforts to pretext you). Then, when she was in jail -- where she was kept over a weekend and not allowed to post bail because it was Sunday -- she was denied the emergency contraception she asked for because the medical supervisor at the jail refused to give it to her, because it was "against her religion." I am not making this shit up. Planned Parenthood has a page where you can write and send an email to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

Joe Biden and his big mouth enter presidential race

By Michael J.W. StickingsSo Joe Biden is the latest Democrat to join the fray for '08. Fine. I don't always agree with him, but he's a straight shooter, in a wild, reckless sort of way, and I think his foreign policy experience will be a positive addition to the race. If nothing else -- and, let's face it, he has no real shot at the nomination -- he'll force the other candidates, the legitimate contenders, to address issues like Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and Darfur with something other than carefully crafted spin. The fact that he has no real shot at the nomination -- he may not know it now, but he will -- provides him a nothing-to-lose freedom, and that freedom will allow him to speak his mind freely.But while his big mouth may prove to be of benefit to the race, and of service to the other candidates, his tendency to stick his foot in mouth with rhetorical blunder after embarrassing rhetorical blunder could prove to be a disservice both to himself and to his party. Consider what he said recently about BarackObama: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."He's being hammered for that one. Although it's probable that he just didn't express his point clearly enough, the perception of ignorance and bias has fueled the 24/7 news machine. What did he say? What did he mean? It's all much ado about not much at all, but it takes but an inkling of scandal for speculation to explode. Did he say, did he mean, that other African-Americans in the mainstream are not articulate, not bright, not clean, and not nice-looking? Hmmm.Anyway, I don't intend here to add any more fuel to the machine. He said what he said and shouldn't have said it. But I highly doubt that this was Biden's Michael Richards moment. We didn't witness the emergence of the real Joe Biden, the heretofore hidden bigot. Biden is a straight shooter, and at times he should think more before he speaks, but he isn't a racist.All the explosive speculation, all the much ado, makes for some excitement at a time when fabricated excitement is all there is. Political junkies need something to talk about even when there's nothing going on.So let's get back to the race, or whatever race there is -- and let's get past Biden's stupid remark.Joy to the world.

Fox and Fiends

I've been a closet theologian all my life, not that I’m religious. I’m very interested, however, in the evolution of religions, and I have devoted many a shining hour to studying the early history of Christianity and the first-century social and political milieu in which it originated. I think I have learned quite a bit about what Christianity was not, before it became the many other and different things it became, and I think that the one thing I have learned and believe most confidently is that religion, regardless of its origins, eventually becomes a system by which people sanctify what they are and what they want and what they hate by calling it worship.

That’s just the same sort of thing that Fox News thrives on. This morning’s edition of Fox and Fiends featured Doug Giles, a bombastic theohooligan and self-idolater who launched into a rant about how Jesus really doesn’t like nice guys and how our churches should be promoting the creation of little warriors to fight terrorism.

Jesus, at least according to the Giles exegesis, really doesn’t like women either, nor their “feminist agenda” and its influence on the warrior cult of the “rough and rowdy” Christ, who, as we know, was always looking for a fight. Last year, Giles wrote, or should I say excreted an essay, for Townhall.com called "Raising Boys Feminists will Hate," which would be high on my “not even if I was on a desert island” don’t-read list had I not had the misfortune already to have read it. My conclusion was that smug Doug Giles is a homosexual of the Brown Shirt variety who would have felt right at home in the SA with Ernst Röhm. He loves fights and he hates women and the men who love them, including Jesus.

As an agnostic, I can assure you that the pain of living in a world without hope that Doug Giles will spend eternity broiling on a spit is sometimes more than I can bear.

The Gleiwitz incident

False-flag terrorism is an old and effective way to justify acts of aggression that would be hard to justify otherwise. In our conspiracy-loving country, events such as the World Trade Center attack are often given as an example, the premise being that our administration staged it in order to justify a war against Iraq.

Famous examples are theBerlin Reichstag firein 1933 that gave Hitler reason to demand emergency powers and the completely phony attack on the Gleiwitz radio station used to justify Hitler's invasion of Poland the following day. A corpse wearing a Polish uniform was arranged outside of a radio station in Silesia, anti-German messages were broadcast, and the public told that Poland had attacked.

It shouldn't really surprise anyone that there is speculation as to what exactly happened in Karbala on January 20th. The official story that the men wearing American uniforms who carried out the kidnapping and murder of American troops were just too good to be Iraqis or even members of al Qaeda is everywhere, but the source is hard to pin down.

Iran involvement suspected blares the headline on CNN. Unnamed "sources" say "We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained.""People are looking at it seriously," says another "official" whose use of the "people say" trope reminds me so much of Fox News' favorite method of launching fabricated rumor. Just who is doing the suspecting here and why should we be convinced that it isn't propaganda?

Anything is possible and of course it is also possible that the perpetrators were Iraqis or others looking to get the U.S. involved in an attack on Iran, and "people are saying" that it's entirely possible that U.S. interests directly or indirectly linked to the administration would love to use this as an excuse and were directly involved in facilitating or carrying out this attack.

False-flag terrorism or not, this speculative linking of Iran with an increasing number of incidents and unverifiable stories of sudden progress in the making of nuclear weapons looks a lot like the run up to the fake state of emergency that precipitated the invasion of Iraq. Of course it is possible that Iran is involved, if not in this incident at least in other incidents in Iraq, but we are dependent upon the testimony of proven liars for our information. Does the Bush administration have enough credibility to be able to convince us that we need another war on another front? Does George really care what we think anyway? People are talking.

Debating war powers: Democratic resolve, Republican hypocrisy

By Michael J.W. StickingsIt looks like things are getting serious in the Senate. Non-binding resolutions were all the rage, congressionally speaking, last week, but Democrats are now looking to block Bush's ridiculous surge strategy once and for all: "Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee began laying the constitutional groundwork today for an effort to block President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq and place new limits on the conduct of the war there, perhaps forcing a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq."Republican Arlen Specter may be on board. So may other Republican dissidents -- and their ranks are growing.Democrat Russ Feingold, one of the Iraq War's most consistent and credible opponents, intends to go further: He "said he would soon introduce a resolution that would go much further. It would end all financing for the deployment of American military forces in Iraq after six months, other than a limited number working on counterterrorism operations or training the Iraqi army and police. In effect, it would call for all other American forces to be withdrawn by the six-month deadline."

Once again, if I may repeat myself: This is why it was so important for Democrats to take back Congress in November. Whatever comes of this, at least options other than the one pushed by Bush and his Republican rubber stampers in Congress are on the table. At least we're having this discussion.

At least Democrats are in a position to put an end to the madness.

**********But the debate is more fundamental than Iraq, for it concerns constitutional war powers more generally. Make sure to read the Times article linked above for details. And also make sure to check out Glenn Greenwald, who reminds us that Republicans were fully in favour of congressional checks on presidential authority with respect to war when they were in the majority and Clinton was in the White House. In other words, they were in favour of congressional war powers before they were against them.Hypocrisy? Of course. What else is new?

GOP jive talking

If you had any doubts left that Co-dependent Joe Lieberman has joined the White House team, which seems unlikely what with all the warm and approving mentions by Bush and Cheney lately, the latest (leaked) GOP talking points memo should convince you. The steno sheet urges the party faithful to pimp Joe's recent remarks to the WSJ as proof positive of how nice and bi-partisan they've become since they got their asses whupped in the mid-terms. The GOPers love this line.

The people in Congress, and the public, were quite right in saying the president's got to come up with a different approach. And he did. It's better than any other plan I've seen because it holds the hope of success. Most of the other plans are effectively just giving up and walking away."

"Ultimately, a strategy for success must present a realistic plan for bringing security to the people of Baghdad. This is a precondition to advancing other goals. President Bush's strategy offers such a plan -- and it is the only strategy that does."

And what is this miracle strategy again, that has this extraordinarily high hope of success? Throwing a pitiful 20 or 30 thousand soldiers into a snake pit of over 6 million people? We did that last summer and it completely failed so WTF is new about it?

New would be rolling in with thousands of troops and tanks and helicopters and air strikes and leveling the city to bring order. Oh wait -- we did that when invaded and broke the social order in the first place. Come to think of it, we did that in Fallujah too. That city is still not secure either. And forgive me if I mention that the latest bloody 24 hour battle with some mysterious new Shia cult took place 100 miles south of Baghdad. The insurgents, whoever they are, are violent, not stupid. They're not going to wait around Baghdad while we muster our troops. They've already left the city and are spreading out.

To use the words realistic and great potential for success in the same sentence as Bush's new plan would be laughable, if only he wasn't so deadly serious about going forward with a strategy that seems doomed to set us back again.

Krazy Kristol -- a new series

By Michael J.W. StickingsOne of our favourite targets here at The Reaction is neocon extraordinaire Bill Kristol, son of Irving. (Even though Heraclitus and I are just two degrees of separation away from him academically. But let's not go there.)You can find our myriad posts on the K-man here, but, if I may, I would direct your attention specifically to this one by Heraclitus, this one by Libby, and this one by me.Anyway, I'll turn this installment of Krazy Kristol -- surely a new and ongoing series here, now with a catchy name of its own -- over to Isaac Chotiner, who wrote this on Monday at The Plank under the transparently facetious title "Kristol's Wisdom":

Bill Kristol, who has lately been intent on proving you can make a lucrative career out of being right less often than a broken clock, valiantly defended Lewis Libby on Fox News Sunday yesterday. According to Kristol, Patrick Fitzgerald decided to go after "Scooter" instead of other members of the administration (like Ari Fleischer) because of the former aide's hawkish stance on Iraq. During the discussion Kristol made this remarkably inane point:

Ari Fleischer is the president's personal press secretary. He's at the same level in the White House as Scooter Libby. They're both assistants to the president. Ari Fleischer, in some ways, is closer to the president than the vice president's chief of staff. I was a vice presidential chief of staff and I sure wasn't as close as Marlin Fitzwater was to President Bush.

Ah yes, Kristol's time as Dan Quayle's "brain" is a good analogy to Libby's role in the current White House. Quayle and Cheney had approximately the same influence with their respective presidents, after all.

One should not be surprised that the founder of a think tank pompously and self-aggrandizingly called the Project for the New American Century, as well as one of the Iraq War's most ardent cheerleaders, would have such a sizeable ego. Even being wrong so often isn't enough to deflate it.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Muddled meddling

Richard Lugar appears to be searching for some middle ground in the muddle of the occupation. I don't know enough about football to understand his analogy, but he makes some sensible points. We do have to look outside of Baghdad and consider our strategy on a regional level. But whatever team our troops are supposed to be playing for right now, and I don't think that's at all clear, there's no mistaking whose side Lugar is taking:

At the center of this realignment is Iran, which is perceived to have emerged from our Iraq intervention as the big winner. We paved the way for a Shiite government in Iraq that is much friendlier to Iran than was Saddam Hussein. Bolstered by high oil revenue, Iran has meddled in Iraq, rigidly pursued a nuclear capability, and funded Hezbollah and Hamas.

Iran is perceived to be the winner? They are the winner because as Lugar rightly points out we installed a government that has strong ties to Tehran. Ahmadinejad would never have become such an obnoxious blowhard if he didn't perceive the strength of his position. And as to the White House talking point that he is meddling in Iran, I think Lugar should consult a dictionary. If anyone is meddling, I'm afraid it's us. We arrived without an invitation and made the regime change. Ahmadinejad has been invited in by the new Iraqi government we helped install.

Lugar's language is really loaded in that last sentence. He simultaneously bolsters Bush's case to get tough on Tehran while subtly chiding the European nations for not imposing stiffer economic sanctions. The trouble is, it's not that simple. The Europeans are resisting U.S. pressure to up the ante because it's their economies that are riding on the kitty. Easy for Bush to demand they play the game by his rules, but he's not the one who will face the consequences. He seems to forget that most leaders feel the need to answer to their people.

In any event, considering our current position, one can hardly blame the leaders of the free world for feeling a little skittish about allowing our Great Decider to be making decisions for them.

Specter of brilliance

By Michael J.W. StickingsPresident Bush, as you may know, has referred to himself as "the decider" with respect to Iraq. He will decide what to do, no one else. (He has more recently referred to himself as "the decision maker" -- see here.)There is ample room for criticism (and humour) here, but let's give the floor to Republican Senator Arlen Specter, one of the few remaining moderates in the Republican camp: "I would suggest respectfully to the president that he is not the sole decider. The decider is a shared and joint responsibility."Well put -- you know, checks and balances and what not.Although I would suggest disrespectfully, because no respect is deserved, that Bush is not only not "the sole decider" but that he's had his chance to decide and that his decisions, one after another after another, have led to failure.The proof is Iraq.

Exposing the lies: The Democratic Congress tackles global warming

By Michael J.W. StickingsIt's almost enough to think you're living in the Twilight Zone, even to think that the mass hysteria predicted by Dr. Venkman in the mayor's office is about to become a reality. You know, dogs and cats living together. That sort of thing. (Don't get it? Here.)

Pinch yourselves, friends. After years and years of irresponsible neglect and downright hostility under Republican leadership, Congress is finally getting around to addressing global warming, or what Al Gore refers to more broadly as the climate crisis. Of course, it's about time. And it may already be too late. But don't blame the Democrats. They just took over. At least now, in the majority, they can try to do something about the most pressing issue of our time, perhaps the defining problem of our entire civilization.Some Republicans, like Senator James Inhofe, think it's all a hoax. And even if they don't, they haven't shown much interest in doing anything about it. And the White House -- well, as with so much else, it's in denial, conscious denial, willful avoidance, the suppression of truth:

Federal scientists have been pressured to play down global warming, advocacy groups testified Tuesday at the Democrats' first investigative hearing since taking control of Congress.

The hearing focused on allegations that the White House for years has micromanaged the government's climate programs and has closely controlled what scientists have been allowed to tell the public."It appears there may have been an orchestrated campaign to mislead the public about climate change," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Waxman is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a critic of the Bush administration's environmental policies, including its views on climate.

And the Senate is at it, too: Clinton, Obama, even McCain. And it will be an issue addressed by all of the major Democratic candidates for president. Indeed, one of John Edwards' five key issues is this: "Leading the Fight against Global Warming and Our Addiction to Foreign Oil."Simply put, global warming can no longer be ignored, and certainly not by those who are most responsible for it. Bush broke ranks with the deniers and admitted the reality of global warming in his State of the Union address, but that's all he's done -- aside from supporting the suppression of the truth. And, to repeat, there's been nothing coming out of Congress. What action there's been has come from a select group of progressive states, including Schwarzenegger's California.But now is the time for Congress to act. With Democrats prepared to lead the way, maybe something, finally, will get done. It's important to expose the lies, but substantive efforts must follow.Pinch me again when that happens.

Iraqi forces were surprised and nearly overwhelmed by the ferocity of an obscure renegade militia in a weekend battle near the holy city of Najaf and needed far more help from American forces than previously disclosed, American and Iraqi officials said Monday.

They said American ground troops — and not just air support as reported Sunday — were mobilized to help the Iraqi soldiers, who appeared to have dangerously underestimated the strength of the militia, which calls itself the Soldiers of Heaven and had amassed hundreds of heavily armed fighters.

The reality is clear, the Iraqi forces are not up to the job. The spin is even clearer, at every step of the way in GWB's latest publicity offensive (some might say publicity "surge") Iraqi successes will be trumpeted despite the reality on the ground. Call me cynical, I guess I don't have a "half-glass-full mentality," but haven't we been down this unrealistic road before?

Ahmadinejad's best friends

By Michael J.W. StickingsLet's move away from American coverage of U.S.-Iranian relations and the ongoing problem of Iran's involvement in Iraq. (Articles up at The Washington Post right now include one on Bush saying he'll do "whatever it takes" (whatever that means -- go ahead and speculate) to repel Iranian engagement in Iraq; one on Iran's growing influence in Iraq (with Iraqi support); one on Arab states blaming the U.S. for Iranian ascendance in the Middle East; and another one on Bush's warnings to Iran. And so on.)What's really going on in Iran? If President Ahmadinejad is the problem, or a big part of it, what is his future? What is Iran's future course more generally? Will it continue to influence events in Iraq as it seems to be doing now (although Bush and the warmongers are almost certainly exaggerating the problem)? Will it continue to develop its nuclear program (and, eventually, nuclear weapons) even in the face of widespread international condemnation? Will it continue to seek a greater role in the Middle East, to become a true regional power?At The Guardian, Ali Ansari, the director of the Iranian Institute at the University of St. Andrews, notes that Ahmadinejad's popularity is in decline. And so is his support at the top. He has suffered "an unprecedented rebuke from the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei -- reflecting growing concerns among the political elite, including many conservatives, who are increasingly anxious at Iran's worsening international situation." He has become "intoxicated with the prerogatives of his office, neglected his populist campaign platform, and "failed to consolidate and extend his political base". There's even been talk of impeachment!Good news, then, right? Er, maybe not. What's keeping Ahmadinejad in power is the very international crisis of which he has been a major cause. As long as the U.S. talks tough and threatens Iran with "whatever it takes" rhetoric -- and not just to kick Iran out of Iraq but to destroy its nuclear program and perhaps even to pursue regime change -- Ahmadinejad is likely safe: "As domestic difficulties mount, the emerging international crisis could at best serve as a rallying point, or at worst persuade Iran's elite that a change of guard would convey weakness to the outside world."Yes, "while Ahmadinejad has been his own worst enemy, the US hawks [i.e., Bush, Cheney, and the neocons, inter alia] are his best friends".Which means that Bush and Ahmadinejad, bitter enemies though they may seem to be, are actually reinforcing each other. While Bush is playing the Iran card, Ahmadinejad is playing the America card. Both are creating the impression that there is a greater threat than there actually is. Bush is doing it as he struggles for popularity; Ahmadinejad is doing it as he clings to power. Two sides of the same coin, both are playing the old political game of pumping up the enemy for personal gain.Dare I mention that this is precisely what Hitler and Stalin did?